#tfw a post somehow expresses your feelings better than you can

[sailor-slam-dunk]

Christmas Eve Service

hhgghhh chrimmis fic

Tagged: @heelnev​ [whose post format i am stealing here hah a ] @transboy-tyler-official​ [message me if any of you would like to be tagged in the future!]

Oneshot

Fandom: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment

Rating: Teen and Up

Warnings: N/A

Relationships: Cedric Alexander/Enzo Amore

Characters: Cedric Alexander, Enzo Amore

Other: Christmas Fluff, Family Bonding, tfw you get roped into going to a christmas eve service with your boyfriend's intimidating relatives

Summary: Enzo wants to spend Christmas Eve alone with Cedric. He ends up at church instead.

[ao3 link] [text below cut]

“OH no, no, no, no,” Cedric exclaimed as he threw a blanket over Enzo. “Oh, no. Not tonight, not right now. Absolutely not.”

Enzo’s lip curled in a pout as he sat up in Cedric’s bed. He tried to throw the comforter back off, but Cedric was already pinning it back over his chest (lest he…expose himself, again) with one hand, the other busily buttoning a starchy white shirt up his own neck.

“Ya serious?” Enzo whined as he sat up again, this time careful to keep himself covered. “It’s fuckin’ Christmas! Ya gonna ice me out on Christmas?”

Cedric’s attention was now turned to the mirror, hands busily trying to fumble a knot to secure his necktie. “First of all, it’s Christmas Eve,” he said brusquely. “Second, that’s exactly why I’m doing it. Damn—” A muted stream of swears left his mouth as he failed again with his tie. Enzo beckoned Cedric to the side of the bed with a curl of his fingers, and, apprehensively, Cedric knelt down by the edge. Enzo twisted and reached over, and started to undo the ungodly thing that Cedric had somehow managed to put in the fabric and retie it.

“Bright red? Real festive. What’s the occasion, huh?”

“Since when did you know how to do a necktie?” Cedric asked, his brow knitted together with confusion. “Your definition of formal wear is putting on pants.” Enzo glared up at Cedric as he finished up the new clean, straight knot.

“Yeah, a’ight, hilarious; now answer my question? Where ya goin’? Especially when you could…” Enzo paused, and pulled Cedric in by the end of his tie, bringing their faces just inches apart, “Keep me n’ the bed warm?”

Cedric flushed red as he gave Enzo’s shoulder a shove. “Church, dipshit. I’m going to church. Pretty sure you’ve heard of it?” Cedric punctuated this thought with a little slap to the cross tattoo adorning Enzo’s left arm. Now it was Enzo’s turn to blush, holding the skin that Cedric had just brushed against.

“Thought Christmas was ‘bout spendin’ time with family n’ friends and shit…” He grumbled, turning his face down to his knees, tented below the blanket. Cedric sighed, turning around to face Enzo, hands resting behind him on the vanity.

“Well, I got my mom and grandma downstairs waiting on the couch in their Sunday best. They’ve been waiting on me for the last fifteen minutes, we’re probably already late. And if you think I’m going to look into my old, black, octogenarian grandma’s eyes and tell her that I am skipping a Christmas Eve service because a perverted white boy stumbled in through my—how did you get here?”

“Window,” Enzo said, as simply as if it were nothing.

“—Through my window and into my bed to have sex with me, we’re both going to hell on the spot.”

Enzo exhaled through his teeth and looked away. He kind of hated it when Cedric was right, because it made him feel a bit stupid. “Alright, fine, ya win,” he grumbled at the ceiling, “go ahead. I can find my way back out—but I might, ah, steal a carton of nog from ya fridge first, a’ight?”

Cedric sighed again as he looked Enzo over. He knew that he had been right, but Enzo had a point as well: it was the season to spend time with family and friends. He had the family waiting downstairs, and Enzo…well, he was sort of dwelling in that space between “family” and “friend” with Cedric, even though neither of them really knew how he’d ended up there.

“Do you…” Cedric started slowly, but Enzo’s head had already snapped to attention so quickly that he kind of chuckled. “Do you, maybe…wanna come with?” Already, Enzo was squinting at Cedric, so he quickly added, “yes, I’m serious. I can’t just leave you alone here on Christmas Eve.”

A peculiar expression came over Enzo’s face as he bit his lips, and Cedric had difficulty figuring out whether or not it was excitement.

After a minute’s deliberation, Enzo shrugged his shoulders. “Why the hell not? It’s not like I got anything else to do with you outta commission.” He threw the bed sheets and blanket aside (Cedric was careful to look up at the ceiling and away from him) as he sat up, and set about pulling his tight pair of black jeans—gaping holes ripped into the knees—up his waist. With his other hand he fished around behind the pillows, and pulled out a garish jacket, printed in patches of leopard and tiger and zebra and God-Knows-what-else-skin, and Cedric nearly cried out in despair.

“Oh no you don’t!” He exclaimed, snatching the jacket away from a very offended Enzo’s hands.

“Hey!”

“You are not gonna set foot in church dressed like that,” Cedric scolded, throwing the jacket into the nearby hamper.

“Fuck do you want me to do, then? Go naked?” Enzo folded his arms up over his bare chest. Cedric scratched the sides of his head as he thought for a moment, but then brightened with an idea.

“Hang on a sec,” Cedric said, turning around, hands going to work pulling open the closet door and a flurry of drawers. Black socks, slacks, and a dress shirt fell down onto the bed around Enzo in a blizzard, each of which Enzo picked up and inspected in his hands.

“Ya want me to wear these?” Enzo said, almost incredulously.

“Why not?” Cedric asked, handing Enzo a small hairband he’d found. “Get your hair back, by the way.” Enzo stretched the band over his wrist, and then unfurled the pale blue shirt against his own chest. His expression was skeptical.

“Don’t think you n’ me wear the same size, big fella,” Enzo said. Cedric patted his cheek reassuringly, causing him to redden.

“Don’t worry about it. Besides, it’s better than what you had on.” With that, Cedric moved up towards the door. “Be down in the next ten minutes, or else my mom is going to kill me, and then you. In that order.”

“Where are you gonna tell ‘em I came from, huh?” Enzo smirked wryly as he pulled his hair back into a frizzy bun. He was met with a similar smirk from Cedric.

“Came in through the window, remember?” Cedric started to walk out the door, but stopped short, and turned around to face Enzo one more time.

“By the way,” he said, gravely, “don’t swear. And if you start whining within the first minute, I’m gonna haul you over to the cross and nail you right up there next to Jesus. Got it?”

Enzo waved Cedric off with his hand as he pulled the shirt over his elbows. “We Gucci! Don’t worry about it!”

Cedric thought that he certainly hoped so, and pulled the door shut behind him.

/

To Enzo’s credit, he stuck to his word. He waited until two minutes of the sermon had passed before he started complaining.

“How long is this?” Enzo said in a low groan from his throat. He then winced as a sharp elbow was drawn into his side (courtesy of Cedric’s mother, “madame Alexander” as he mentally termed her) for the third time in a row. He bowed his face further into the program card to avoid Cedric’s gaze, which he knew was twisted with a smug amusement that would fill him with resentment if he saw it.

“It’s two hours, Enzo,” Cedric whispered softly, and Enzo cringed to hear the smirk in his voice.

Simultaneously, as he pretended to read over the program, his mind boggled—two hours for what? In what dimension should it take two hours to explain to a room full of dedicated Christians the meaning of this holiday? Enzo thought to turn to ask Cedric, but evidently Cedric must have sensed that first, because before Enzo could even move Cedric had jabbed his own elbow into Enzo’s side, leaving him wheezing and pinched on either side of his torso. Three different “shush”es came from indistinct corners of the room, and Enzo hunched his shoulders inward with embarrassment. He felt eyes upon him—Enzo assured himself that it was primarily because he’d been too loud, once again, but all night he had, in the back of his mind, suspected another reason. Primarily, that he was a white man—not that he was the only one; this church turned out to have a rather equitable mix of races all across the board. But Enzo was a white man sitting in the middle of a black family, that he, very obviously, didn’t claim any relation to, unless they perhaps had adopted him. And Enzo assumed that Cedric’s family had been members of this church for a while, so that was definitely out of the question, unless he was one of those rare (so rare that they probably didn’t exist) children who got adopted in their 30s.

Not to mention, he was, again, a man. There was nothing inherently wrong about that, either, except that he was a man curled up against Cedric’s side—he consciously inched away now—much closer than any brother or friend would be. Of course, he didn’t want to accuse anybody in this church of anything, because he didn’t know any of them, but…Enzo just felt so uncertain, all of a sudden. He was certain that someone was judging him, and—worse yet—judging Cedric because of him.

Or maybe it was how he was dressed? Enzo was used to that sort of thing being the reason for many disbelieving stares, but then he gazed down at the stiff, plain shirt rumpled over his chest and suddenly remembered that he wasn’t in his usual sort of attire. On one hand he was glad for this, because Cedric has certainly been right about the clothes he’d had on earlier. If Enzo had tried to enter like that he probably would have been banned from the church. But, on the other hand, he still didn’t look quite right—as he’d expected, Cedric’s shirt was too big for him (for a moment he felt a twinge of shame over his lanky frame) and hung loose from his chest in a large bubble, making him appear awkward and thin. Enzo felt like—he grumbled softly again, attempting to smooth out the wrinkles of his unfortunately baggy slacks—a complete geek. A complete geek in an unfamiliar place with a bunch of unfamiliar people—well, except for Cedric. Enzo found himself instinctively scoot a bit closer to Cedric’s side. At least he radiated a familiarity, a sort of safe spot that Enzo could hitch himself to.

For a moment, his hand brushed against Cedric’s, whose head snapped up as if he expected some other dumb remark to come from Enzo’s mouth. Instead he just found him looking confused and concerned, and Cedric’s expression softened as he gave Enzo’s hand a quick, reassuring pat. Enzo took a breath in and nodded as he tried to ease back into the sermon, though he didn’t have the faintest clue what he was even pontificating about.

Then, suddenly, everyone rose up from the pews. Enzo stumbled up a full second late, and Cedric reached out as if he meant to steady him. From either side, around his shoulders, Enzo spotted the inquisitive stares of Cedric’s family, and suddenly pined to be able to shrink all the way down into that stupid shirt like a turtle. As he attempted to straighten himself out, he noticed as everyone reached down into the wood racks in the seats before them, and pulled out a small book, which seemed to be of—oh.

“Aw, Jes—” Enzo somehow managed to catch himself early, though he still earned a rather stinging glance from the corner of Cedric’s mother’s eye. He mouthed a tiny apology as Cedric leaned over.

“What’s the matter?” He whispered against Enzo’s ear. Enzo gruffly pulled a songbook out from the rack.

“We’re gonna sing?” Enzo said in despair. Cedric’s lip wrinkled sardonically.

“You ever go to a church where you didn’t sing?” He asked. Enzo flipped through the pages of the book, trying to find his place.

“In Catholic church we mostly just drink wine and yell,” Enzo admitted, trying not to groan as his eyes took in the scattered notes of the sheet music. Yet, in his peripheral, he saw a small smile crawl over Cedric’s face.

“That explains everything about you,” Cedric said. Enzo could hear a small chuckle being bitten off in his breath, and he suddenly felt a bit more at ease.

A hymn started up from the pianist on the stage, and Enzo felt eyes on him the moment he opened his mouth. He winced to hear his own voice croak out into the first few lines of “Adeste Fideles”—was that the harmony? He thought as he felt sweat bead on his neck. How in the hell did these people learn the harmony? Most people he knew barely had a grasp on the melody. Enzo’s voice lowered sharply—a rarity—with embarrassment as he tried to hide his face with the songbook. Cedric turned his head slightly and took notice, quietly taking a step closer to Enzo’s side. He pulled the book down from against Enzo’s nose and to a distance where he could reasonably see the notes. Softly, Enzo heard Cedric’s voice close to his ear, providing him a buoy to cling to and try to find his place. For a moment Enzo about melted, before remembering that he was in the house of God—he shouldn’t have been so taken in by it, because Cedric wasn’t trained, either, and his voice warbled faintly as he struggled to quite find certain notes, but to Enzo he sounded almost perfect, and for a minute he wanted nothing more than to just listen to him perform. But nevertheless, Enzo pulled himself to reality and muttered along, trying to turn the awkward strains of his throat into song. As he listened to himself he brightened a bit. It was as if just having Cedric to guide him made him better.

Then—how strange—Enzo thought he heard two other voices, female, crowding closer to him. He glanced off to either side, careful to keep paying attention to Cedric’s voice guiding him, and flushed as he found that both Cedric’s mother and grandmother had lowered down to their level. Enzo looked upon madame Alexander to his left inquisitively, and his heart almost stopped when she smiled at him faintly. They were trying to help him—a thought that made Enzo’s heart swell up for a bit as he found himself raising up his voice a bit louder.

It was like being in a family, for a moment.

/

Even after the two hours had passed, and all of them were standing out by the cars in the parking lot, everyone was still smiling. Enzo thought this a bit odd, because he knew he’d been more than a bit of a pest that night; but he didn’t know the last time he had people as respectable as Cedric’s family smiling at him to any capacity, so he didn’t even dream of questioning it, and smiled back at them warmly and shyly. At the end of his arm—he had to look down to confirm it, because he almost didn’t believe—Cedric’s hand was tightly entwined with Enzo’s own, fingers clasped shut and squeezing. Pink scattered along Enzo’s cheeks, and he suddenly couldn’t remember whether or not Cedric had told him if he’d come out about the two of them to his family yet. But, then again, Cedric was being suitably obvious with the way he clutched Enzo’s hand, stroking his knuckles with his thumb, and yet his mother simply kept chatting and laughing as if she thought nothing of it. Enzo felt his eyes sting, in the best way possible, as he realized this.

Cedric even reached over to Enzo’s hand a couple of times on the drive home, holding it down under his palm on the console between the seats. Enzo, in the passenger seat, still worried about his place there, turning his head back several times to Cedric’s grandmother to tell her that if she needed this seat, she could have it, but she insisted that she was just fine where she was (and Enzo swore that, at least once, she said that while her eyes squared in upon Cedric’s hand resting on his).

And yet, when they parked in front of Cedric’s house, Cedric grabbed Enzo’s shoulder as he tried to unbuckle his seatbelt.

“You stay here a minute,” Cedric said. Enzo blinked in confusion, watching as Cedric led the two matriarchs out of the car and into the house, leaving him sitting in the car with a coat around his shoulders.

In about ten minutes, Cedric came bounding back out to the car with quick strides. Enzo opened the door, ready to meet him outside, but Cedric was already leaning in and kissing his lips hard, almost pressing Enzo’s head into the driver’s seat. In a moment he pulled back, and Enzo sprung back up like a spring, eyes wide and cheeks tinged red.

“How you doin’…” He murmured, a confused smirk edging into his face. Cedric returned to him a bright and earnest smile, one that made Enzo’s heart tremor, as he leaned in to press another kiss into Enzo’s forehead. He stepped back and shut the door, before quickly reappearing through the driver’s side door and settling in behind the wheel.

“You did good behaving, tonight,” Cedric said as he pulled the seatbelt across his chest. “Mama and grandma were real impressed—and so was I!”

Enzo felt a pang of pride in his chest at Cedric’s words, but still, he had to ask. “Why ya strappin’ in? We goin’ somewhere?” Cedric turned to him with a smile that bordered on mischievous.

“Well, you behaved so well tonight, and my family’s at my house, so…I told them we’re gonna go back to your place for a bit.”

The red tinge in Enzo’s cheeks darkened, and Cedric couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, no, not that…necessarily.” Cedric reached out to Enzo’s red face, and cupped a hand over his cheek. Enzo pretended to roll his eyes at the affection, even as he tilted his head closer into Cedric’s palm. Cedric smiled at the adoring look in Enzo’s eyes. “I do want to kiss you when we get there, though. A lot.”

“Alright, I-I…sure, I…” Enzo’s eyes widened as he stammered. Wait, what did he mean, just “sure”? Of course he wanted to go—but something in his brain was stopping him. “Actually…can we go back inside here first?”

Cedric raised an eyebrow, releasing the seatbelt and winding it back into the wall. “Why? I mean, sure, but why?” He asked. Enzo bit his lip.

“Just, ah…wanna thank your family for having me tonight, maybe talk for a little bit?” Enzo felt a hot rush of embarrassment as he recognized the amusement in Cedric’s eyes. Cedric climbed back out of the car, and soon was opening Enzo’s door, offering a hand to help him out—a hand that Enzo took.

“Alright, fine,” Cedric said with mock-weariness, “we’ll go have a brief chat with the in-laws.”

Enzo beamed in a way that was nearly blinding, and he nuzzled the side of Cedric’s face.

“Thanks, babe.”

/

Of course, “a bit” turned into “the rest of the night”, and when Enzo woke up with an arm around Cedric on the downstairs couch of the latter’s home, he was a tad bit embarrassed. But, when Cedric’s mother and grandmother came down, and soon they were all drinking coffee, Enzo found that he didn’t mind all that much—in fact, he didn’t really care at all.

It was always nice to spend Christmas with family.

#205 live #enzo amore #cedric alexander #falalalala-lalalala~